


Life is the best of our stories

by notveryhandy



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Ableism, Abuse, Coronavirus, M/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Queerphobia, Self-Hatred, Thoschei Lockdown Exchange (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24224209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notveryhandy/pseuds/notveryhandy
Summary: Koschei is not coping, he’s just... being. There is no easy way out of here.
Relationships: The Doctor | Theta Sigma (Doctor Who: Academy Era)/Vansell, The Doctor | Theta Sigma/The Master | Koschei (Doctor Who: Academy Era)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Life is the best of our stories

**Author's Note:**

> This is... pretty dark. I’ve put any warnings in the tags. But if you are triggered by detailed mental health discussions I would recommend not reading.

Koschei wakes up at precisely 3pm in the afternoon, and wanders into the kitchen too exhausted to really make out what is going on. The kitchen is cramped and at the same time far too empty. He shakes his head, as if trying to scrape the fatigue from his mind.

His vision is blurry with exhaustion but there is little of any interest to see. It is exactly the same as any other day: dull, boring, and completely unchanged.

The shutters are pulled over the windows, and it’s grey enough outside that he can’t make out the room, but damned if he can be bothered to turn the lights on. There’s cold toast and lukewarm juice on the counter, and a note from Ushas reminding him to eat and drink.

It’s so unappealing, the idea of consuming anything, that he walks straight out.

* * *

It’s 1am now and he hasn’t slept for hours. Hasn’t _moved_ for hours. Has just been sat here, eyes barely open and mouth the worst kind of tasteless, scrolling through his phone.

There’s nothing new. Isn’t going to be anything new any time soon. He’s sure that he should be doing something productive, like finding a job application, but instead he’s been sitting on the floor and tracing pride flags onto his arms, his face, the walls, his phone. Anything in sight.

All the colour is as if to make up for a lifetime of denying himself it, to try and force some happiness into the persistent blank slate of his mind. He is painfully aware that he’s letting Ushas down, that she’s working for both of them in an awful job with awful people.

Is aware that she can barely keep her anger out her voice on some days, that she’s worked herself into and through shutdowns trying to complete work, because if she does not do her absolute best she will be fired without a second thought.

And that would be his fault, and now he’s making everything about himself, isn’t he?

* * *

His phone beeps and Theta must have sent him a message on yet another social media platform. Ushas looks up form her mug of coffee. “You could just answer back, you know.”

He knows that. Knows Theta probably just wants to _talk, Kos, where the fuck have you been?_

But there’s still that lingering feeling that Theta’s angry, or that he’s forgotten him. “No thanks.”

She shrugs, and goes back to reading. “It’s just a thought. We haven’t stopped being here just because we’re in lockdown.”

She’s _right,_ and that only makes this harder.

* * *

“I-” He’s shaking and he’s sobbing and how _could_ they he cannot breathe-

“Ushas, they-” His voice cracks so badly it’s almost impossible to make out words. The surge of long-repressed memories shining under the microscope of safety, the damage they have done to him impossibly clear under such scrutiny. “They-”

There’s an arm on his shoulder, and then around him, although his vision is blurred by tears and black spots dancing around, and everything is cloudy and bitter and tastes like apple juice someone left in the fridge for too long.

Everything is sour. He’s hyperventilating and almost having a panic attack. 

“They’re not here.” Neither of them have ever been good at comforting, but she is calming enough that he isn’t screaming or vomiting or doing any other hideous (how he sees it) and scarring activity that won’t go anywhere just like his worth and his life and-

It’s so easy to spiral.

* * *

Putting on a façade to talk to others is something he’s done so often it feels like some magic talent. He presses up against the back of the chair, knows there’s no reason to have clammy hands or a trembling voice over a fucking _Z_ _oom call._

Ushas understands. She does that a lot. She’s also busy fiddling with the computer angrily, a tech whiz with coding but not social media. “I’m perfectly good with technology,” she huffs to no one in particular.

It’s lighthearted and relaxing, in a way. “Sure,” he jokes. “Do you want a hand?”

There’s a gruff “No thanks,” and the screen flickers to life. Bright blue hair fills one part of it, the other a staticky image of two people sitting side by side. Both clear, revealing Millennia and Rallon on one side, and Drax and Jelpax on the other.

“The gang meets up again!” one of them says. He tires to focus on the computer and not anything else in the room.

“Gang?” Ushas sniffs, more with amused annoyance than disdain. She’s always like that.

“Good to see everyone! Including you, Ushas!”

And before he knows it, the chat devolves into friendly banter, welcoming him in again.

* * *

At some point he accidentally presses the accursed _Accept_ button and answers Theta back. He almost drops his phone, and when he hears Theta’s voice it’s like everything else is _gone_ because he’s been daydreaming about them meeting for months and been too restricted by his own anxiety to do anything.

“Kos!” Bright voice and probably bright everything. And oh, so beautiful. Even without visuals he can’t forget for a _second_ why he loves this boy - no, no, man. Odd to think they’re adults now. 

“Theta, Theta, Theta-” He doesn’t know what to say so he’s just hoping against all hopes Theta will say something.

“Oh thank god, I was beginning to think you wouldn’t answer.”

Yeah. That’s true. He wasn’t. “Theta, I love you, I love y-”

“I know, right?” Cocky. Maybe that’s the best part. “I love you too.”

Confessing all his life on the phone. What next, murder?

And he gets so lost in Theta that for once he forgets, forgets everything.

* * *

Jealousy is the worst, he decides. Maybe that’s because he’s staring at Instagram and all the photos of Theta and _Vansell,_ what a prick. Maybe it’s because Theta didn’t grow up in a shitty house with shitty people, barely making it out alive and certainly not whole.

He could cut out his heart, he decides. Maybe then emotions would not overwhelm him so regularly. Or wipe his memories, and he’d be able to pass a few days without meltdowns or panic attacks. (As it is, he’s dissociating far too often and practically neglecting himself. Bad. Bad. Very bad.)

He just wants to live without fighting every step of the way, but he knows that is not a possibility in this world, in this country.

Why? He’d give up everything for an answer, sell his soul to a devil. (They wouldn’t get much out of it, to be honest.)

* * *

Ushas is curled up next to him on the sofa, and the lockdown is relaxing. She’s not really awake, dozing through possibly the most important news all week. There’s many things he’s lost, but she’s the opposite.

They’re closer. Closer friends. There will never be anybody quite like her, he thinks, certain nobody could match her sharp wit and quiet kindness, almost invisible to a stranger but stark and obvious when you knew her. 

Everybody he cares for has abandoned him, except these few. He’ll cling onto them with all his heart, won’t he.

If he doesn’t he’ll be disappointed, and if he’s disappointed he’ll lose himself to depression and anxiety and all that which hurts him, haunts him.

He’s not sure he can break again like that.

* * *

“Koschei, we’re - we can see them again.”

So the lockdown is over, so Theta’s back, that’s all he needs to know. His boyfriend comes rushing through, sprinting clumsily to the finish line known as Koschei Oakdown and grips him so tight he almost can’t breathe. It’s like a living binder, and he knows full well how they feel.

“Koschei!” He buries his face in Theta’s chest, eyes screwed shut. “So weird to see you like this.”

No emotions, don’t cry. It’s an instinct - a basic defence - that he still hasn’t worked out of his system and isn’t sure he can. Oh, oh, but this is lovely, and he is crying.

Theta’s shirt is wet and now he hates himself for that. “I’m sorry...”

Theta blinks. “You don’t need to apologise,” he says just as thickly. “It’s fine.”

And at that Koschei breaks down again, and _god_ why is this so hard.

* * *

He hugs Ushas tightly just to make sure this is all real, and it is so odd that people are there. She doesn’t like contact much, but when she does permit it (a rarity, really) it is a blessing. Especially now, when everything is being played so fast and loose. He clings to the hope of friendship and discards the possibility of another situation like this.

It’s too painful. So many things that terrify him. He doesn’t want to be in entirely different countries to Theta again, to stop communications like that because talking, it seems, is vital.

He smells grass. She’s been outside? A shocker. Tackled to the ground, most likely, given Ushas’ dignity and restraint. Oh, and balance. That too.

Life, a fairytale for the ages.


End file.
